


on bloodstained teeth

by unchosenone



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Episode s01e07 Asylum, Gen, Post Episode s01e07 The Asylum, Team as Family, coda 1x07, inpired just by me being sad about gar, killing people ain't fun kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 01:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16734642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unchosenone/pseuds/unchosenone
Summary: clean up for them never seems to be purely physicalDick does his best to look after Gar and Rachel as they leave a burning asylum.





	on bloodstained teeth

Dick turns his back on the burning asylum, and burning suit, and more than a few burning memories, and truly intends to follow Kory’s advice and get out of here. Unfortunately, clean up for them never seems to be purely physical, and he slows where he sees Rachel hovering a ways away, hugging herself.

Touching Kory’s arm to indicate he’ll be a moment—a request which she is clearly unimpressed by, though she doesn’t argue—he heads over.

“Hey,” he exhales when he reaches Rachel. Just behind her, her mother stares at the flames with an inscrutable expression.

Rachel nods in greeting, though she’s clearly distracted.

“Are you hurt?” Dick asks. He’s pretty sure she’s not, but it’s a solid baseline question as he tries to pull the frazzled dregs of his mind back together. His eyes slip again to Rachel's mother, who notices this time and offers a weak smile.

“No,” Rachel says. She gives him a worried look. “Are you?”

Dick shakes his head. “I’m good.” He can still run, he can still fight, and he’s not going to need any serious medical attention. He’s fine; bumps and bruises don’t count. Even his brain is…well, _almost_ working normally now.

“About ready to go?”

She nods, but makes no move to leave. It finally occurs to Dick that she’s not focused on him ( _almost_ working normally), and he follows her gaze to the car, where Gar sits framed by the passenger door, wiping his face with his sleeve. Even from here, the slump of his shoulders is _off_. Not like Gar, from everything Dick has seen so far, not that he knows him that well. He should do something about that.

He turns back to Rachel.

“They had him in a cage,” she explains, without Dick needing to ask. Her eyebrows draw together. “When we got him out, one of the scientists came at us with this—this taser thing, and Gar, he bit him and...”

She trails off, but Dick can already fill in the rest of the sentence. Another glance to Gar shows the boy still scrubbing at his chin. It was red when they got Dick out. He couldn’t tell if he hallucinated it at the time, but now he’s certain he didn’t.

Rachel bites her lip, curled into herself. Dick tries to look reassuring to balance it out, even though he feels anything but. “You okay?” he asks, putting a hand on her shoulder.

It's a stupid question to ask someone's who been through everything Rachel has today, but she reads between the lines. _Is it okay if I leave for a minute?_

“Yeah,” says Rachel. And despite all of it, when she glances to her mother there's something genuinely happy in her expression. “Yeah, I'm alright.”

So Dick heads to the car, nodding at Kory along the way. Dead grass gives way to pavement, and he stops in front of Gar. The boy drops his hands, fingers folded over the cuffs of his jacket, but doesn’t look up.

“Hey,” Dick says, which is met with predictable silence.

At least Gar waited until now to shut down. He kept it together during their escape, followed the mission—But as soon as the thought crosses Dick’s mind, he feels awful for having it. Feels like Bruce.

“You did good back there,” he tries, and wonders if he’s destined to repeat the mistakes made on him. “Helping Kory…”

Is this what Bruce would say, too? Give him a pat on the back for what he did right, before releasing the criticism, then send him off to patch up his body without worrying about his mind? Dick doesn’t know anymore. All he knows he doesn’t want to do the same, but he can’t figure out how to do it better.

“This is all my fault,” Gar murmurs.

Disk doesn’t have an answer for that. Neither yes nor no seem adequate.

No point in beating around the bush, he decides instead. “Rachel told me what happened back there.”

Gar frowns at the ground. “I've never bitten anyone before,” he says. “And now he—he's dead.”

_He would be dead by now anyway_ , Dick doesn’t say.

“You did what you had to do,” he does say, which isn’t much better. Gar flinches, and Dick grimaces at his own words. He shakes his head. No, that's not...

Dick thinks about a foggy bridge in Gotham, and the specter of his younger self screaming his self-hatred, and all the things he wishes had been said to him, and kneels down in front of Gar.

“He could've killed them,” Gar says before Dick can speak, nodding to Rachel and her mother. “He was—he was a bad guy. But if he was so bad, why don't—Why do I feel like this?” It's barely a whisper by the end.

Dick's chest burns. There are a lot of things he's been trying to handle without really understanding—ancient dark prophecies and untold powers and amnesia. But this? This he knows. This he should be able to handle, because if he can’t, he shouldn’t even be here.

The goal, Dick thinks, is not to _fix_ , but to help. It’s the first thought that settles well in his mind.

“Hey, look at me,” he starts. “Look at me. This is important, okay?” Gar's head finally tilts up just enough to meet his eyes. The solid red smear has been wiped from his chin, but, unwashed, left a pinkish tint behind. His eyes are a little red too, undoubtedly for other reasons. And, _fuck_ , meeting Rachel has ruined Dick, because he can no longer figure out what the point of him is if he can't protect these kids.

“You saved their lives,” he says. “I know that doesn’t erase it, but it does mean something. And the reason you had to do it is because that man was a bad person. And the reason you feel the way you do right now is because you're a good person. Don't get them flipped around. Okay?”

Gar's eyes are back on the ground, but he nods. Dicks hears the others' footsteps approaching, and knows they really have to get going now. There's no more time for reassuring talks here if they want to make a clean getaway—even if he knew what else to say.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asks, before the others reach them.

“Yeah,” Gar murmurs. He clears his throat, and when he looks up again, there's some semblance of that old smile on his face. “Yeah, 'course. I'll be fine.”

It doesn't take a genius to spot the lie. Still, as Dick rises, aching joints reminding him of his own injuries, he somehow feels like the pit inside his own chest has been filled in just a little bit.

“Let’s go,” he says, directing it both to Gar and to the other arrivals: Rachel, Kory, and their new addition. The safehouse may well be blown by now; no sense risking it. “Time to find a new motel.”

**Author's Note:**

> dick & gar: this murder has irrevocably changed who i am as a person forever
> 
> rachel: hm bummer how you slit your own throat
> 
> [kory blowing things up in the background]
> 
>  
> 
> listen i love this little broken family


End file.
